Flipping the savage and civilized races.

[walfulninja]

In my next campaign, I want to have a world in which all of the normal "civilized" races (humans, elves, etc.) and the "savage" races (Orcs, goblins, etc.) Switch roles, meaning humans and elves are the savages and Orcs and goblins are civilized. I need some help fleshing out the culture of the newly civilized races. What is their art like? What is the styleof their weapons? Stuff like that.

[Kelb_Panthera]

How much do you want to keep of the original cultures of the savage races and which ones do you want to use (they outnumber the "civil" races by quite a margin)?

Have you considered paralleling a few real world cultures?

What have you got so far?

[walfulninja]

How much do you keep of the original cultures of the savage races and which ones do you want to use (they outnumber the "civil" races by quite a margin)?

Have you considered paralleling a few real world cultures?

What have you got so far?
I dont really have much right now just the bare bones
I would like to keep as much of the original culture as possible, although paralleling them would be an interesting idea. I'm not sure if they out number the "civil" races. They probably would, as they tend to have much higher birth rates (cough goblins cough).

[MyrPsychologist]

I would absolutely switch Goblins and Gnomes completely. Make gnomes the insane inventors whose inventions are extremely dangerous and volatile while the goblins invent strange but marvelous works of mechanical art that somehow works even when it doesn't seem it should.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I actually meant that there are more savage races than civilized races.

Goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears (though these three are sometimes lumped together as goblinoids), lizardfolk, yak folk, janni, bhuka (desert goblins, completely different from their common cousins), kobolds, hadozee, vanara (these last two are borderline, i admit), and the list goes on with these just being the material plane natives I could remember off the top of my head.

Conversely; elf, gray elf, wild elf, dwarf, gnome, halfling, illumian, raptoran, goliath (again, pushing the term on the last two), and a dozen or so varieties of human.

There are a whole host of other creatures on the same or similar level of intellect to those above that interact with societies but have no real culture of their own; plane touched, dragonborn, etc.

So like I asked before, which ones do you want to use?

[DrMotives]

You could keep orcs warlike, but play them up more like orcs from Warcraft, or maybe like Klingons. A warrior culture full of tradition and high idea of honor. I think Klingon culture is largely based on a fantasy of feudal Japan anyway. Of course, some would say that's stepping on Hobgoblins' toes after ToB played them up like samurai, but I always thought of hobgoblins as more Western-style urban people, something like devils with the law & evil both turned down several notches.
Goblins you can keep as inventive tinkerers with a love of fire, but to civilize them you might turn that pyromania into a veneration of a god of forges & blacksmithing, a goblin Hephaestus sort of thing. Maybe actually Hephaestus, if you gave all the formerly savage races a Greek / Roman god to follow it could really cement a theme in your campaign. That would put orcs in league with Ares, maybe hobgoblins with Hestia, goddess of the home, hearth, & fire?
Gnolls could easily be the Artemis people. They're already written up as hunters with ranger as favored class, and hyenas are possibly the most female-dominant of all mammal species. While gnolls usually aren't written as matriarchal like hyena, no reason they shouldn't be.
Lizardfolk are already cast as druids in 3.x, you could keep that but civilize them into farmers & growers, make them the Ceres people, goddess of agriculture & the cause of the change in seasons.

[walfulninja]

I actually meant that there are more savage races than civilized races.

Goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears (though these three are sometimes lumped together as goblinoids), lizardfolk, yak folk, janni, bhuka (desert goblins, completely different from their common cousins), kobolds, hadozee, vanara (these last two are borderline, i admit), and the list goes on with these just being the material plane natives I could remember off the top of my head.

Conversely; elf, gray elf, wild elf, dwarf, gnome, halfling, illumian, raptoran, goliath (again, pushing the term on the last two), and a dozen or so varieties of human.

There are a whole host of other creatures on the same or similar level of intellect to those above that interact with societies but have no real culture of their own; plane touched, dragonborn, etc.

So like I asked before, which ones do you want to use?
Ah OK. I'll start with the most iconic races to start, orcs, goblins, kobolds, gnolls, ogres and trolls. Then I might add in more as I go.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera
...hadozee, vanara....

I wouldn't have considered either of those as "savage" by any means. The hadozee are described as curious explorers and integrate easily into human crews on sailing vessels, while the vanara in OA are described as "incredibly loyal, quite brave when the situation requires it, and genuinely kind," as well as honest and curious. The most that's said against the vanara is that their curiosity can lead them to overstep the bounds of ordinary human propriety.


Originally Posted by MrMotives
I think Klingon culture is largely based on a fantasy of feudal Japan anyway.

Gene Roddenberry described them as "the Mongol hordes of space," and that was vaguely how they were portrayed in TOS, although in a rather cheesy and fanciful 60s way. The honorable-warrior-race aspect was invented for TNG and elaborated in later series.


Originally Posted by walfulninja
I'll start with the most iconic races to start, orcs, goblins, kobolds, gnolls, ogres and trolls. Then I might add in more as I go.

Do you have any ideas for how genuinely savage you want the "savage" humans and elves to be? Are they simply scattered, tribal and primitive, or are they hostile xenophobes or semi-organized hordes?

[Kelb_Panthera]

I wouldn't have considered either of those as "savage" by any means. The hadozee are described as curious explorers and integrate easily into human crews on sailing vessels, while the vanara in OA are described as "incredibly loyal, quite brave when the situation requires it, and genuinely kind," as well as honest and curious. The most that's said against the vanara is that their curiosity can lead them to overstep the bounds of ordinary human propriety.

I was drawing a parallel between the very tribal natures of most of those cultures. Between that and the obviously non-human features of those two races made them seem a fit for the category, if a rather loose one. Even if you drop them from that list it's still the larger list, especially if you go by more completely and rigorously compiled lists.

The designers made a -lot- of humanoid (shape not type) creatures with tribal or "savage" cultures. They only rarely added more sophisticated racial cultures after the classic elf, dwarf, halfling/gnome cultures.

(I still have no idea why hobbits got split into two races like that or where the gypsy stuff on the halflings came from; not that I'm complaining.)

[Palanan]

Fair enough, and I certainly don't disagree that there's a huge number of "uncivilized" races out there in the hinterlands and wilderness.

I never liked the nomadic aspect of halflings myself, which I first came across in 3.0/3.5 Forgotten Realms. But feral halflings do make for good savages, especially when you load them up with all the "clobber the big people" feats in the FR sourcebooks.

:smalltongue:

[ZamielVanWeber]

I never liked the nomadic aspect of halflings myself, which I first came across in 3.0/3.5 Forgotten Realms. But feral halflings do make for good savages, especially when you load them up with all the "clobber the big people" feats in the FR sourcebooks.

:smalltongue:

Book of Vile Darkness had some particularly nasty halflings...

On topic I always viewed as the races as the list of races that could exist, not that do. Purely "savage" races still need some sort of organization and claimed territory. Primitive does not even seem accurate because they have access to advanced magic.

[Anlashok]

Well, savage elves are already a thing so it's not so much flipping there as it is just using one specific variant of them instead of several. Ditto with humans to a lesser extent. And halflings (dark sun). So really you're not really flipping much of anything except dwarves I guess.

For the others. I guess figuring out how much cultural identity you want to give them is a nice start. Warcraft has some interesting 'civilized' orcs and goblins, so you could look there for some ideas, perhaps. Eberron also has fairly cultured orcs.

[Rawrawrawr]

I think the most interesting thing to do would be to keep the major traits of each race, but flip their morality - some examples:

Humans are supposed to be ambitious and adaptable. They have the deck stacked against them (short lifespan, no real innate abilities), but they're so driven that they've still managed to become the "new kids on the block," so to speak. So, flip that on its head - ambitious, cruel, and trying to carve out their place in the world. Individually, they're ambition leads them to be conniving and backstabbing - a race of Starscreams, as it were. As a whole, they're looking to conquer and dominate the other races.

Dwarves are deeply loyal, and consider family to be incredibly important - sounds kinda like an organized crime syndicate.

Wood Elves tend to be capricious and haughty - so evil versions might be kings of "for the lulz." They don't consider other humanoids to be real people - they're not there for anything other than entertainment.

High Elves are also haughty, but with a focus on magic - so they might see other races as "test subjects for magical experiments" instead of people.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by ZamielVanWeber
Book of Vile Darkness had some particularly nasty halflings...

Not to mention Dark Sun. :smalleek:


Originally Posted by Rawrawrawr
Dwarves are deeply loyal, and consider family to be incredibly important - sounds kinda like an organized crime syndicate.

And this is just scary when you start to think about it.